Engelbert Kaempfer

Engelbert Kaempfer (* September 16, 1651 in Lemgo, † November 2, 1716 in Lemgo - Lieme ) was a German physician and explorer. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Kaempf. "

In the course of almost ten years of research journey that took him across Russia and Persia to India, Java, Siam and eventually Japan, he gained numerous skills to natural science, geography, politics and administration of the countries visited. His writings are considered important contributions to the study of Asian and impressed at the same time the European image of Japan of the 18th century.

Life

Engelbert Kaempfer was the second son of John Kemper, a pastor at St. Nicolai Church to Lemgo, and his wife Christina Drepper, the daughter of his predecessor. After the early death of his first wife in 1654 by the father of Adelheid Poeppelmann married. From 1665 Engelbert attended secondary school Lemgoer and from 1667, the Latin school in Hameln ( 1667). For gifted students, it was the custom, the school to change several times to expand the horizons and improve career options. Another reason could be that both his uncle Bernard Grabbe and Andreas Koch were executed in the course of Lemgoer witch trials in 1666 and 1667. From 1668 to 1673 he went to high school in Lüneburg and Lübeck, and the " Athenaeum " in Gdansk, where he studied philosophy, history, and old and new languages. There he published his first work entitled " De Divisione maiestatis " (On the division of the supreme power ). There followed a lengthy study of philosophy and medicine at the " High Schools" in Torun, Krakow and Königsberg. 1681 he joined the Academy in Uppsala.

In Safawidenreich

At the Swedish court Kaempfer made ​​the acquaintance of Samuel von Pufendorf, of him the Swedish King Charles XI. as a physician and secretary of legation to an embassy headed by the Dutchman Louis Fabritius recommended to the Russian and the Persian court. During this trip, he trained his powers of observation and made extensive records on land and people in the visited regions. The delegation broke out on March 20, 1683 in Stockholm and traveled across Finland, Livonia, Moscow and Astrakhan, where they arrived on November 7, 1683, and then continued the journey by ship across the Caspian Sea. On December 17 they reached Schemacha, capital of the then still under Iranian rule Shirvan region. The local one-month stay Kaempfer used to visit the oil wells Fontes naphtha from Badkubeh (now Baku ), which he explored was the first European and described in more detail. Even today, Exhibition panels in the Museum of Baku 's visit Kaempfer. On January 14, 1684 finally hit the embassy in Rasht in northern Iran, and traveled from there via Qazvin, Qom and Kashan to the Safavid capital Isfahan, where they arrived a year after their departure from Stockholm on March 29, 1684. Kaempfer spending a total of 20 months in Isfahan on and became one of Europe's most important witnesses to whom we owe valuable reports on the then Iranian capital, the management of the Safawidenstaats and life at court. Not least due to the learning of Persian and Turkish, he was able to gain a deep insight into life in Iran in the 17th century.

After East Asia

During his stay Kaempfer learned of the presence of a Dutch fleet in Bandar Abbas and he decided to use this opportunity to separate themselves from the Swedish legation, and to undertake a journey as a ship's doctor to India. However, he had to wait one and a half years until he was finally able to leave to Bandar Abbas. On the way south, he visited the ruins of Persepolis and studied the tablets with hieroglyphics, for which he invented the name cuneiform. In climatically extremely grueling Bandar Abbas he lived two and a half years. It was here, among others, his work on the date palm. After extensive attempts, he finally got a job with the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

On June 30, 1688 he went as a ship's doctor on board the yacht Copelle who had invited Persian goods for Ceylon and Batavia. Kaempfer was concerned with the study of tropical diseases, such as elephantiasis. He arrived on July 16, 1688 Muscat, capital of Oman. Although he stayed only a few days, he made extensive records of Oman. His notes are among the most important sources of that time, as he was one of the few European visitors of the country was then. About a year he worked as a ship's doctor in the Indian room.

After his arrival in Batavia, the headquarters of the company in East Asia, he applied unsuccessfully for a job at the local hospital. He met his friend Parve know, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Dutch East India Company. In dealing with former travelers to Japan and educated in Batavia then matured the plan for a comprehensive understanding of the country, which only used a very limited dealings with the outside world since 1639. On May 7, 1690, he left Batavia on board the Waelstrohm. The first stop was the Dutch settlement in Ayuthya, where he attended the King of Siam. After a three-week stay the Waelstrohm stabbed on June 7, 1690 in Lake again and reached Nagasaki on 24 September 1690th The branch of Dutchman was on the artificial island of Dejima ( Dejima ) in the immediate vicinity of the city. This was the only allowed to stay for the members of the VOC, the Dutch formally all were considered to be due to the so-called seclusion.

Here Kaempfer worked as a doctor from 1690 to 1692. Though the Europeans were allowed to leave the commercial establishment only to one or two day trips per year, he succeeded, thanks to the cooperation of Japanese partner as his rooms servant Imamura Eisei, the interpreters Namura Gonpachi, Narabayashi Chinzan (1648 -1711 ) to collect and numerous other objects, books and information and evaluate it.

As a physician Kaempfer could also take part in the annual journey to the court of the Dutch representatives in a ceremony in the castle of Edo (now Tokyo) had pay thanks to the shogun for permission to trade with Japan. After crossing the island of Kyushu we sailed on a small ship of Shimonoseki to Osaka and then moved overland across the famous Tôkaidô ( Tōkaidō ) to Edo. These two trips enabled him to review the information gathered so far, expand and meet important regions of the country from his own experience. Luckily for him, the botanizing was permitted, so that he amassed an impressive collection of plant samples. On the way he was attention to the Japanese spider crab, which got its name in modern nomenclature: Macrocheira kaempferi. Both a male and a female specimen are today in his home town, the old Hanseatic city of Lemgo Lippe, at the Museum Hexenbürgermeisterhaus.

Return to Europe

On October 6, 1693 Kaempfer reached after a stopover in South Africa with the Pampus Amsterdam. After completing his PhD at the State University in Leiden, where he gave ten medical observations for the best, he returned in August 1694 back to Lemgo, referencing the Steinhofgründe Lieme in which his father had acquired in 1675. Here he began the evaluation of its treasures, but the medical practice and especially his duties as physician to the sophisticated Count Friedrich Adolf zur Lippe in Detmold proved to be time and energy consuming. The 1700 closed, little happy marriage with more than 30 years younger than Sophie Wilstach contributed to the growing exhaustion. In a letter to his Dutch friend Parve he wrote in 1705: I lead a restless and exceedingly arduous life between fields and courtiers.

In 1712 he succeeded finally, the " Amoenitates Exoticae " to publish in his native Lemgo. To print a second manuscript " Today's Japan " is no longer there but came. At the age of 65 years Kaempfer died on November 2, 1716 Steinhofgründe. He was buried on 15 November 1716 in the Nicolai church in Lemgo. In his will, he had decreed that his wife should come away empty, and used as the main heir to his nephew Dr. Johann Hermann Kemper, son of his elder brother Joachim, who served as general counsel in Goslar.

The heritage

According to Kaempfer's own words, he has brought into his work anything out of my own imagination paper on anything that smacks of the office and smells of the study lamp. I confine myself alone to write what is either new or not completely and thoroughly narrated by others. As an explorer I had to collect no other aim than to observations of things that are nowhere or not enough known to us. ( Preface of Amoenitates Exoticae ) The 900 -page work is aimed at the European academic world and consists of five books: The larger part is devoted to Persia, the rest refers to Japan.

Large parts of the estate were purchased in 1723 and 1725 from the physician to the King of England and passionate collector Sir Hans Sloane ( 1660-1753 ). This could translate the unpublished manuscript Japan by the young Swiss physician and scholar Johann Caspar Scheuchzer and publish in 1727 under the title The History of Japan. The systematic work filled a void, as a comprehensive, newer description for many decades walkout. Also succeeded Kaempfer, largely free themselves from the form of the travelogue and spread his observations in the form of topoi (geography, history, religion, etc.). Early as 1729, published the first editions of a French and a Dutch translation. After the discovery of a second manuscript in the estate of Kaempfer's niece, was the Enlightenment, later State Archivist and Christian Wilhelm Dohm out a German version, which appeared from 1777 to 1779 under the title Kaempfer's History and Description of Japan with Meyer in Lemgo. In his own words he had carried out careful textual changes, but in fact entire chapters that were missing in his manuscript, translated from the The History of Japan. He also took over, with one exception, selected and edited by Scheuchzer illustrations of the English version.

Especially the French edition was received intensive of the European intelligentsia. Thanks to the systematic design and the wealth of information it was also used by later travelers to Japan as of European writers, encyclopedist and naturalists. Great influence gained Kaempfer's treatise on the Japanese "Final Policy", the first published in the Amoemitates Exoticae and has been widely used in the Appendix to the History of Japan and the subsequent editions. His image of a frugal, industrious and under the strict rule of the Emperor ( shogun ) together harmoniously living society which had withdrawn to protect them from the world, dominated the European image of Japan far beyond the 18th century addition. In its Japanese translation of 1801 Shizuki Tadao then coined because of the complexity of the formulation Kaempferschen the new term sakoku (national accounts), which should be a key concept in Japanese historiography of the 20th century.

Kaempfer's writings were a milestone in the study of Japan. In them later Japan traveler oriented to Philipp Franz von Siebold.

Kaempfer's botanical observations were significantly higher than those of his predecessors Andreas Cleyer and George addition champions. Among other things, he gave the first detailed description of the western Ginkgo, a force to be extinct tree. This was introduced around 1200 years ago in Japan and cultivated as a temple tree for medicinal purposes. Kaempfer's Flora Japonica suggested Carl Peter Thunberg for reprocessing of Japanese plants on the basis of botanical taxonomy his academic teacher Linnaeus. Whose work was then developed by Philipp Franz von Siebold beginning of the 19th century on.

Kaempfer's research on Japanese language today for linguists of some interest, overall he remained here but below the level of the Jesuits of the late 16th and early 17th century published grammars and dictionaries. In terms of Japanese acupuncture and moxibustion, however, he provided concrete examples of therapy and Japanese materials. Up until the 19th century that any travelers to Japan to go beyond this representation. Many details of its national heritage descriptions of Japan went into the famous Encyclopedia of Diderot and d' Alembert. The description of his " audience " at the court of the Japanese shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi stimulated especially the poets.

Since the estate Sloane entered the collection of the British Museum after his death as a founding collection, this part of Kaempferschen stocks for future generations could be saved. Kaempfer's extensive family library of about 3500 titles, however, was scattered as a result of 1773 conducted the auction. His " pedigree " and acts of his divorce proceedings are in Detmold. The translated into German parts of the code include: Engelbert Kaempfer: 1651-1716. Strange Asia ( Amoenitates Exoticae ). In selection translated by Karl Meier - Lemgo, Detmold 1933 The entire first book of the Amonitates appeared in 1940 under the title. " Engelbert Kaempfer: At the court of the Persian king ( 1684-1685 )" in the Translation of Walther Hinz Iranisten, it is considered a the most important German sources on the Persia of the 17th century.

Recent research showed significant differences between the English print edition of the Japan and the plant kept in the British Library German manuscript. As part of the critical edition of Kaempfer's works, the original version was first made available in 2001. Other publications of the estate show an impressive breadth and depth of research of Lemgoer doctor who is rightly counted among the most prominent explorers of the 17th century.

Acupuncture and Moxibustion

Kaempfer tried on the representations of Hermann Buschoff, who introduced the term Moxa, and Willem th Rhijne, who coined the term acupuncture, going beyond what he achieved with the description of specific therapy cases to some extent. Regarding the explanation of the mechanisms of action, however, it remained largely in terminology and interpretation of his predecessors. The mechanism of action of acupuncture and moxibustion Kaempfer interpreted as " revulsiv " ( revolutionary ):

Its general interpretation of point selection for moxibustion ( and acupuncture) had no effect on the early acupuncture practice in France ( 1810-1826 ), which was limited to the needles of pain points, rather than - as was common in China and Japan - with a to treat a combination of local and remote points.

The situation is different with Kaempfer 's description of the treatment of " colic " with acupuncture in the Japanese. It is illustrated (p. 583 ) by the image of a woman in whose upper abdomen 9 points are painted. Behind this description is the Japanese suffering Senki, a disorder of the flow of Qi in the abdominal region. The observed of him therapy follows a Japanese concept that ignores the Chinese meridians and considered the belly as a place of diagnosis and therapy.

Since the 15th century were in Northern Europe, the terms " colic " and " ascent of the uterus " are used interchangeably, at least since the beginning of the 19th century, joined the term " hysteria " as well.

The French doctor Louis Berlioz (1776-1848), father of composer Hector Berlioz practiced first in Europe to acupuncture. The first patient, a 24 -year-old, whom he treated with acupuncture in 1810, was suffering from a "nervous fever " ( = description of " hysteria ). He stabbed the points in the upper abdomen described by Kaempfer without combining with remote points.

Honors

Carl Linnaeus named in his honor the genus Kaempferia plant the ginger family ( Zingiberaceae ). The Japanese spider crab was in the modern nomenclature its name: Macrocheira kaempferi.

In Lemgo Engelbert Kaempfer, there is a monument at the Wall. It was initiated by the German naturalists and physicians, financed and inaugurated in 1867. At the birth house Engelbert Kaempfer - - the current parish hall of St. Nicolai - 1937 a memorial tablet by Gauleiter Alfred Meyer under the auspices of the Reich leader Alfred Rosenberg. 1991 Engelbert Kaempfer - Society has mounted in Lemgo - Lieme at the entrance of the former residential house Kaempferschen a blackboard. Carolin Engels created in 2009 Engelbert Kaempfer - Memorial Stone. It is located in the Church of St. Nicholas near his grave site.

Works

• Exercitatio politica de Majestatis Divisione in real personalem et, quam [ ... ] in celeberr. Gedanensium Athenaei Auditorio Maximo Valedictionis loco publice ventilendam proponit Engelbertus Kaempffer Lemgovia - Westphalus Anno MDCLXXIII d 8 h Junii mat. Dantisci [= Danzig ], Impr David Fridericus Rhetius.
• Disputatio Medica inauguralis Exhibens Decadem observationum Exoticarum, quam [ ... ] per gradu doctoratus [ ... ] publico examini subjicit Engelbert Kempfer, LL Westph. ad diem 22 Aprilis [ ... ] Lugduni Batavorum [ suffering ], apud Abrahanum Elzevier, Academiae Typographum. MDCXCIV.
• Amoenitatum exoticarum politico - physico- medicarum fasciculi v, quibus continentur variae relationes, observationes & descriptiones rerum Persicarum & ulterioris Asiae, multa attentione in peregrinationibus by Orientum universe, collecta, from auctore Engelberto Kaempfero. Lemgoviae, Typis & impensis H. W. Meyeri, 1712. (University of Bonn).
• The History of Japan, giving an account of the ancient and present State and Government of the Empire did; of Its Temples, Palaces, Castles and other Buildings; of its Metals, Minerals, Trees, Plants, Animals, Birds and Fishes; of The Chronology and Succession of the Emperors, Ecclesiastical and Secular; of The Original Descent, Religions, Customs, and Manufactures of the Natives, and of thier Trade and Commerce with the Dutch and Chinese. Together with a Description of the Kingdom of Siam. Written in High - Dutch by Engelbertus Kaempfer, MD Physician to the Dutch Embassy to the Emperor's Court; and translated from his Original Manuscript, never before printed, by JG Scheuchzer, FRS and a member of the College of Physicians, London. With the Life of the Author, and an Introduction. Illustrated with many copper plates. Vol I / II. London: Printed for the Translator, MDCCXXVII.
• Kaempfer, Engelbert Weyl. D. M. and Hochgräfl. Lippischen Leibmedikus history and description of Japan. From the original manuscripts of the author published by Christian Wilhelm Dohm. First volume. With engravings and slits. Lemgo, the publishers of Meyer's Bookstore, 1777 ( digitized and full text archive in the German text ); Zweyter and lezter band. With engravings and slits. Lemgo, the publishers of Meyer's Bookstore, 1779 ( digitized at the State Library of Bavaria).
• Engelbert Kaempfer: 1651-1716. Strange Asia ( Amoenitates Exoticae ). In selection translated by Karl Meier - Lemgo, Detmold 1933
• " Engelbert Kaempfer: At the court of the Persian king (1684-1685) " Edited by Walther Hinz, Stuttgart 1984

Engelbert Kaempfer, works. Critical edition in individual volumes. Edited by Detlef Haberland, Wolfgang Michel, Elisabeth Gössmann.

• ( Vol 1/1, 1/2) Today's Japan. - Munich: Iudicium Verl, 2001 ( text and band commentary ). ISBN 3-89129-931-1
• (Vol. 2 ) Letters from 1683 to 1715. - Munich: Iudicium ET, 2001, ISBN 3-89129-932- X.
• ( Vol. 3) drawings of Japanese plants. - Munich: Iudicum ET, 2003, ISBN 3-89129-933-8.
• (Vol. 4) Engelbert Kaempfer in Siam. - Munich: Iudicum ET, 2003, ISBN 3-89129-934-6.
• (Vol. 5) Notitiae Malabaricae. - Munich: Iudicum ET, 2003, ISBN 3-89129-935-4.
• (Vol. 6) Russia diary 1683 - Munich: . Iudicum ET, 2003, ISBN 3-89129-936-2.